“I don’t know what you’re used to from your last place, but here there’ll be fish on Fridays.”
“Course, ma’am.”
“You’re to keep the counters and pots clean, I won’t stand for mice. And most important, you’re to look after the kitchen store. Groceries for the day, the week, and the month are to be put in the book. You must keep a check on what’s lacking and you must do the writing yourself, do you hear? I won’t do it for you. I’ll count what comes in and you’ll cross it off the list. Not a penny is to be spent that does not have my approval. Breakages must be mentioned within the day or they’ll be made good from your wages.”
She nods a biddable nod.
“Now come with me and I’ll introduce you to the kitchen range.”
I lead her downstairs. “Don’t be shy now. Get familiar.”
She makes her way around, opening into cupboards and checking for what she’ll need. Naught much to her is what I think. Improvable is what I think. She’ll do, she’ll do. But she has another think coming if she thinks I’m going to spend my days calling hoity up the stairs.
Nim. Skim. Spin. Spiv.
“Spiv,” I says. “We’re going to call you Spiv.”
“What’s Spiv?”
“It’s your name from now on.”
“What does it mean?”
“Naught, only I like the ring of it.”
Once I’ve taken her on the full round, I go up with his middle-p.m. cheese and beer. I come in on him pacing. He freezes and turns from where he’s stood, feet outspread in the center of the carpet. “Lizzie, I must ask you to knock.”
“Oh, I would, Frederick, I would, only I’m holding this”—I nod down at my burden—“and I would have kicked, only I saw the door half-open.”
“Excuse me, Lizzie, I’m a brute. Come in, come in.”
I put the tray down on the sideboard and take up the old one.
“Thank you, my love,” he says, not moving from where he is. Then, as if a brilliant idea has just occurred to him: “Why didn’t you let the maid do it?”
“Sure if I gave it all to her, I’d never see you.”
He laughs. “And how is she settling in?”
“Early yet,” I says. “We’ll see.”
“Ya. Indeed. Good.” He claps his hands, rubs them together, now strides over to his desk, lifts the moneybox out the drawer. “Actually, I’m glad you came. I wanted to talk to you. Karl and Jenny are giving a party in our honor.”
“Oh, aye?”
“Tomorrow. To celebrate our arrival and to introduce us to some of the London-based comrades.” He rummages in the box and comes out with four sovereigns. “I want you to take this and buy yourself something nice to wear. We’re dandying up, making a bit of a fuss.”
I give him a stern look.
“Come, Lizzie,” he says. “It’s all right to spend a little to look good.”
“Where would I go?”
“Well, to the dressmaker’s. Have something pinned that will leave their jaws hanging.”
“What dressmaker’s would have anything ready for tomorrow?”
“Go to Barrow’s”—he speaks like a man who knows—“they will be able to help you, I guarantee it.”
I crinkle my brow on purpose. “Barrow’s?”
“It’s not far, in Camden. You won’t find anything here in Primrose Hill. Get a cab. Give them my name and pay them off a few extra shillings, you’ll see. A new place recently opened opposite them and they’re begging for the business. They’d have it sewn while you waited, if that was what you wanted.”
He comes and puts the coins on the tray by his dirty plates. Seeing them there, twinkling among the pork rind, I feel a fresh lightness in my heart. “You might be right, Frederick. I wanted to get abroad of the house anyways, and a run round the shops might be just the ticket.”
“That’s the spirit, Lizzie.”
“I’ll go right away.”
“Ha!” he laughs. “No time to lose.”
“And I might have something out.”
“Of course,” he says, and searches his pocket for an extra guinea. “Good idea.”
I leave as I am, only a light shawl and a reticule as excitements, and I leave the house as it is too, shambled with unfinished tasks, the new girl with the dinner yet to prepare, and I can’t say I’m bothered about it.
I cross the road to the lamppost at the bottom of the Hill and flag a cab from there. On the journey, I watch out the window and put the roads to memory so I can walk back and save the fare.
The bell in Barrow’s brings two girls beetling out from the back room. They’re got up in identical silk dresses with short sleeves and lace caps, but to look at, they couldn’t be further apart: one tidy and pinched, the other large and dusky-skinned and curled about the face.
“I need a dress,” I says.
“Um, certainly,” says Pinch, leading me over to a counter so polished you can see yourself in the black. “Is it for a special occasion, or do you require something useful?”
“I suppose you could call it special.”
“Oh. Well, in that case might I recommend our antique moiré, which we have on special offer at the moment, nearly half price?” She throws a length of rippled silk over the counter; gold so gold it glows. “We have this in a range of shades. Unfortunately, one cannot see its full effect here. It’s most becoming at candlelight.”
“Half price you say?”
“Half price, madam.”
“So how much would a dress of this cost, at half price?”
“Four pounds, eighteen shillings, and sixpence.”
I splutter. “You must be barking. I won’t be spending more than a pound.”
She purses. Beside her, Curly laughs an appeasing laugh and whips the gold silk away, replaces it with another, this one a high-shining blue. “Am I right to say that madam is of the more sensible sort? Less interested in the novelties of fashion than in value for her spend?”
“Well, you wouldn’t be wrong anyhows.”
“In that case, we have this plain glacé silk in over thirty shades of color, commencing at only two pounds, fifteen shillings, and sixpence for the extra full dress.”
I give an impatient cluck. “Maybe I didn’t make myself clear—”
She shakes her curls. “Madam, you made yourself perfectly clear.” She rolls away the blue silk and puts out a green muslin. I touch it. Stiff as a board. “This is French organdy, one of last year’s designs, which we are giving away at the very reduced price of one pound, six shillings, and sixpence for the extra full dress.”
I put my hand under my chin and tap my lip with a finger, as if considering. “Do me one without the frills and I’ll give you a pound for it.”
“Without the frills, madam?”
“None of those ridiculous trimmings you have in the window there. All that unnecessary bib and tucker.”
“We have other models we can—”
“I want it plain, plain as can be.”
“You